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Monday, March 24, 2014

Nice find dept:

Henry VII's bed among England's most valuable furniture

Bought for just $3,500, King Henry VII's bed is now worth $33.3m

A
bed created for the marriage of King Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth
of York, is thought to be one of England's most valuable pieces of
furniture.

The bed was paraded round the north of England after Henry VIII was born

The bed was bought at auction for just £2,250 ($3,500), and will now go on display at Auckland Castle in the UK as the only piece of furniture from the Tudor court to have survived.

A report in the Sunday Times indicates the bed is now valued at £20m ($33.3m).

Ian
Coulson, a restorer of four-poster beds, bought the bed after it was
abandoned in a hotel car park!

Described as Victorian, Coulson initially
believed it was the work of revivalists, but soon noticed the carvings
were more in line with those of Henry VII's era.
Contacting
Jonathan Foyle, chief executive of World Monuments Fund Britain, the
pair have been tracking the bed's history since 2010. It can be traced
back to 1495, when Henry VII took the bed on a tour of northern England
following the birth of his son, the future Henry VIII.

One of Britain's most iconic monarchs was likely conceived between the bed's sheets.
During
the tour, the king is said to have visited Lathom, Lancashire. Here he
saw the Stanley family, who had helped him secure victory in the Battle
of Bosworth against Richard III.
The battle marked the finale of the War of the Roses, a war that had raged for years between the houses of Lancaster and York.

"This
bed belonged to Henry VII. It has to be the most important piece of
furniture - and arguably, royal artefact," commented Jonathan Foyle.
"Even the Westminster coronation chair has less to say than this."

Carvings
on the bed show Henry VII and his wife depicted as Adam and Eve,
evidence of the belief that the Tudors had been appointed by God to save
England from civil war.
'It's arguably the cradle of the English Reformation," added Foyle.

"Look
how the king and queen represent themselves as manifestations of Christ
and Mary; it's Henry VIII's God complex in a nutshell."

An
inscription added in 1547, the year of Henry VIII's death and the first
of a Protestant monarch in England, reads: "The stinge of death is
sinne. The strength of sinne is the lawe".